Today Lin Zhixia wore a long-sleeved moonlight-white dress with a lotus leaf-like hem and flower-shaped buttons on the collar. The style was fresh and elegant, particularly complementing her temperament.
She had also specially styled her hair. She took a strand of hair from each side of her temples, braided them together, gently fixed them to the back of her head, and tied them with a deep blue silk ribbon. Her hair was thick and smooth, radiating a glossy black sheen under the sunlight.
Lin Zhixia had fair skin and delicate features, looking very beautiful and pure. She stood by the roadside for a while, and passersby often turned to look at her, but she didn’t mind at all. Her heart was full of thoughts about quantum error correction, stabilizer coding, and surface coding. Stabilizer coding was limited by a simple structure similar to “classical linear coding” and required high-precision quantum logic gates[1]. Surface coding required less precision than stabilizer coding and was probably the optimal choice for the current evolution direction of quantum computing.
Several sturdy plane trees grew by the roadside, their shadows swaying in the wind. Lin Zhixia stepped into the shadows, walking back and forth a few steps, when suddenly she heard someone say to her: “Hey? Hello, mind if we become friends?”
Lin Zhixia turned around and saw a dark-skinned boy. He was about sixteen or seventeen years old, wearing the international high school uniform. His hair was piled high on top, styled with setting gel, and his whole body emanated a juniper-like men’s cologne.
He stood too close, and Lin Zhixia sneezed from the strong scent.
He smiled and said: “My name is Liu Pu, the ‘Pu’ from dandelion.”
Two male classmates stood behind Liu Pu. They called out to him, but Liu Pu waved them off: “Can’t you see I’m talking here?”
Lin Zhixia frowned slightly: “I don’t know you.”
Many students were successively walking out of the school gate, and noisy conversations in a mix of English, Korean, Thai, and Chinese filled the air. Liu Pu looked around, stepped back, rubbed his palms together, and asked again: “Are you waiting for someone? Are you from our school? I don’t think I’ve seen you before.”
Liu Pu secretly guessed that Lin Zhixia was a newly enrolled student. Her Mandarin was very standard without any local accent, likely indicating she was from elsewhere. He put one hand in his uniform pocket and suggested kindly: “You just transferred here, right? Leave me your phone number, and if you need anything, just call…”
Before Liu Pu could finish, Jiang Yubai’s voice came from behind him: “Liu Pu.”
Liu Pu was wearing a school uniform shirt with his jacket originally resting on his arm. When he saw Jiang Yubai, he consciously stepped aside and draped his jacket over his shoulders. He asked: “You know each other?”
Jiang Yubai walked directly past him.
Embarrassingly, Liu Pu was two years older than Jiang Yubai, but his height didn’t match Jiang Yubai’s. Jiang Yubai stood at 1.81 meters tall, while Liu Pu was about 1.68 meters. Liu Pu stubbornly raised his chin, silently looking up at Jiang Yubai.
Jiang Yubai told Lin Zhixia: “Liu Pu is my classmate from the next class.”
Lin Zhixia didn’t respond.
Liu Pu spoke up: “Is she your relative? She’s so beautiful. Does she study at our school?”
Jiang Yubai’s expression remained unchanged, but his words sounded impatient: “She’s the same age as me, just turned fourteen. Show some respect and don’t get any ideas.”
Liu Pu looked surprised: “Fourteen? Your cousin?” Then he chuckled: “Formal introduction?”
Jiang Yubai suddenly moved closer to Liu Pu, standing only twenty centimeters away, and lowered his voice to ask: “Was what I just said not clear enough?”
Anyone with ears could hear the implicit threat in each of Jiang Yubai’s words.
Liu Pu awkwardly exhaled a “ha.” He extended the thumbs of both hands, with the web of his hands resting on the edge of his pockets, and stepped back. He looked at Jiang Yubai for a moment, then stepped back again.
Lin Zhixia curiously observed their standoff. She noticed that Liu Pu had no fighting spirit at all. He gradually melted into the flowing crowd. He spread his arms and put them around the shoulders of two male students, and the three of them left the place laughing and talking.
At this point, Jiang Yubai grabbed the strap of Lin Zhixia’s backpack, held it for less than two seconds, then let go and said softly: “Follow me.”
Lin Zhixia excitedly followed Jiang Yubai. She tugged at Jiang Yubai’s sleeve, but he didn’t turn around. Finding it amusing, she tugged at him again, and he said: “The driver called me. The car is parked across the street. Let’s cross the road first.”
“Can you turn around and look at me?” Lin Zhixia asked him, “do I look nice today?”
As she expected, Jiang Yubai remained silent.
Lin Zhixia added: “This morning, I spent half an hour braiding my hair.”
Jiang Yubai had his back to Lin Zhixia, so she couldn’t see his expression. She could only deduce his thoughts from subtle details. For instance, she noticed that his hands, originally completely relaxed, were now loosely clenched, showing the blue veins on the back of his hands.
Lin Zhixia lowered her head, examining his left hand.
As if possessed, she reached out her fingertip and pressed on the protruding knuckle of his fist.
This time, Jiang Yubai finally broke his silence. He pulled his sleeve down to cover the back of his hand, then said: “Lin Zhixia…”
Lin Zhixia asked righteously: “What’s wrong with me?”
Jiang Yubai seemed to have just achieved a breakthrough. Overcoming all constraints, he bravely declared: “You look very beautiful.”
Lin Zhixia was stunned for a moment. She lowered her head to stare at the ground, her cheeks flushed red, her mind somewhat blank. To calm down quickly, she began thinking about quantum field theory, but Jiang Yubai’s phrase “you look very beautiful” kept floating in her mind, making it impossible for her to escape his voice no matter what.
Jiang Yubai reminded her: “The light is green. Let’s go.”
Lin Zhixia and Jiang Yubai walked across the zebra crossing to the other side. They got into the same car, and the driver greeted Lin Zhixia: “Hello, Miss Lin.”
Lin Zhixia put her backpack on her lap. She hugged it tightly and responded: “Hello, Uncle Driver.”
The driver held the steering wheel, working diligently.
The car steadily drove along the wide road, heading directly to the vicinity of the Beijing Forbidden City Museum—this was Lin Zhixia’s first time seeing the famous Forbidden City with her own eyes. When she saw the majestic palaces rising from the ground, with red walls and yellow tiles, magnificent and grand, she couldn’t help urging: “Quick, let’s get out. I want to go in and explore.”
Jiang Yubai took out two tickets, one of which he handed to Lin Zhixia.
Lin Zhixia immediately said, “I brought some change. Wait a moment, let me pay you back for the ticket.”
Lin Zhixia showed Jiang Yubai her pink plastic wallet. The side of the wallet was printed with two strawberries—bright in color, full in shape, with emerald green sepals—prompting Jiang Yubai to ask her: “How much do you like strawberries?”
Lin Zhixia briefly summarized: “I like them very, very much.”
Jiang Yubai probed deeper into her preferences: “Why?”
Before she could answer, Jiang Yubai came up with a reason for her: “Strawberries taste quite good.”
“It might not just be that reason,” Lin Zhixia pondered, “when I was four or five years old, my parents were working hardest. Our family’s supermarket sold fruit… Sometimes, my mother would buy extra stock and set up a stall at the entrance of the residential area to sell faster. If business was good that day and my mother earned more money, she would buy strawberries for me.”
Jiang Yubai looked at her: “So that’s why.”
Lin Zhixia recalled the past: “My mother would wash the strawberries thoroughly, pluck off every strawberry’s sepals, and then bring the whole plate to me. My brother always said he hated strawberries. I didn’t understand before, but later I realized, he had always been giving in to me since childhood. Whatever I liked, he would pretend not to like.”
In Jiang Yubai’s view, Lin Zeqiu’s image suddenly improved a little—but only a little, as it was still mostly negative. After all, Lin Zeqiu couldn’t control his temper, his personality wasn’t mature and steady enough, and he might shout at Lin Zhixia at home.
Jiang Yubai could even imagine four-year-old Lin Zhixia holding a plate of strawberries, finding Lin Zeqiu, and asking in a childish voice, “Brother, would you like some strawberries?” And Lin Zeqiu would growl at her: “I don’t want any! Get lost! I hate strawberries!”
Scenarios like that.
Jiang Yubai was moved. Without thinking, he said: “From now on, I’ll take care of all your strawberries.”
Lin Zhixia was somewhat surprised: “You’ll take care of all of them?”
Jiang Yubai had spoken the words in his mind directly without careful consideration. He felt it was somewhat inappropriate, sudden, and offensive, but he was even more unwilling to take back those words… So he simply found a reason: “I am your forever best friend. It’s normal for me to treat you to some fruit.” Then, he gave a similar example: “When I visit your home, you’ll serve me a bowl of fruit.”
Lin Zhixia wasn’t led astray by him. She said: “I still feel something isn’t right.”
Jiang Yubai changed the subject: “Let’s go. Let’s enter the Forbidden City first.”
Lin Zhixia hadn’t forgotten about repaying the money. Her Forbidden City ticket was marked with “sixty yuan,” so she gave Jiang Yubai 60 yuan in cash, but Jiang Yubai refused to accept it. He said: “Friends don’t talk about money.”
But Lin Zhixia said: “Even brothers need to be clear about accounts.”
Lin Zhixia felt that she seemed to have taken advantage of Jiang Yubai many times. She spoke frankly: “When I go out with you, you never let me spend money. That’s not good… Of course, I’m not saying you’re not good. You’re really exceptionally good. You’re much richer than me, but you don’t look down on me for being poor…”
Jiang Yubai continued: “You’re much smarter than me, but you don’t look down on me for being stupid.”
Lin Zhixia suddenly realized that Jiang Yubai was a person with quick reactions and good at debating. So, under what circumstances would Jiang Yubai remain silent?
—When he was shy.
Lin Zhixia laughed “hahaha” and said: “You’re interesting.”
At this moment, tourists were coming and going, and the atmosphere was lively.
Distant white clouds stained the blue sky, which enveloped the magnificent palace. Lin Zhixia said happily, “I’ve watched many documentaries about the Forbidden City. Today, I’ll be your tour guide. I’ll show you around the Forbidden City.”
Jiang Yubai cooperatively called out: “Tour Guide Lin.”
Tour Guide Lin clapped her hands once: “I don’t know how to describe it to you. In my mind, I have every frame of the documentary, and now I’m seeing it with my own eyes. The two images can overlap.”
Jiang Yubai fully embraced the role: “Tour Guide Lin is quite professional, remembering the structure of the Forbidden City so clearly.”
Lin Zhixia tugged at Jiang Yubai’s sleeve: “Yes, I’m going to start working now. You are my only tourist.”